On Tuesday Facebook announced all desktop users will now be served ads irrespective of any ad blocking software they may have installed. Although this will disgruntle many users who are sick of being bombarded with ads on their feed, Facebook has simultaneously updated their preference tools in a move to give users more control over what ads are visible to them on the site.
Adblock Plus believes Facebook is alienating their users which is hardly a surprising response since this will impact Adblock Plus’ business. However, it remains to be seen whether this will aid or deter advertising on the platform. There is the distinct possibility that the prospect of forcing users to view more ads will force people to turn off and alienate brands from their audience. In the same way pre-roll videos created negative associations with brands as people waited to watch what they were interested in, the same ill feeling could be the reality.
As we all spend more time online it is apparent that many are growing tired of the amount of advertising on sites like Facebook. The Interactive Advertising Bureau recently conducted a study which revealed that the majority of those surveyed used ad-blockers because they are fed up with interruptions and distractions from the purpose of their browsing. This survey revealed that 26% of those that took part use ad-blockers on desktop and 15% use them on mobile.
Is Facebook being greedy, after all, it is only going to gain additional advertising revenue from this move or are they going to fulfil their promise to advertisers that their ads will be seen by a highly targeted audience based on their consumer’s ad ‘preferences’?
Unsurprisingly, it hasn’t take long for ad-block users to overcome Facebook’s software from working on desktop. Adblock Plus reported that a new filter to EasyList includes a piece of code that will continue to block ads on Facebook.
If you want to manually add the filter, here is the code you need:
facebook.com##DIV[id^="substream_"] ._5jmm[data-dedupekey][data-cursor][data-xt][data-xt-vimpr="1"][data-ftr="1"][data-fte="1"]
It’s unlikely to work for long but it does create an interesting environment where one tries to outsmart or out-program the other! It will certainly be interesting to see how this unfolds and whether others follow Facebook’s suit.
